He makes and sells high quality trailers that have graced the “Kingdom in the Sky” with their beauty. “Every time we make a trailer; people just don’t believe it’s us who did it,” said a soft-spoken Lebeko Masooa, otherwise popularly known as “Ranko.” You can go camping and or use them for hauling goods—whatever you choose. Their quality and low price rise up to the occasion.
This is the story of Masooa who, together with his cousin and boss, Mr Marite Marite, and others, have come up with nice trailers for Lesotho.
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Milco is the Store that will sell only Lesotho products and services:
“I was born in Mphosong in the Leribe district of Lesotho,” he said even as he began relating a thing or two about his eventful life. “That’s where I grew up and attended school.” That is, until he dropped out of school as a result of, in his own words, “mischievous behaviour .”
Like many of his peers facing the same fate, he ended up taking a job as a taxi driver assistant, who are referred to in Lesotho as “likontae.” He didn’t quite fit to the job. “It is the kind of job where you do the same thing again and again and again.” Apparently, he found the job dead boring.
Already, the innovator in him was stirring!
Innovators don’t like travelling back and forth on one path like they were doors.
He set his sights elsewhere.
“I wanted in South Africa.”
Well, he used to watch some of his peers coming back with rotund cheeks (ba le moropotsana) from “Ha Leseisane” or “Mzanzi” for sure.
Fate would soon him there and all of a sudden, he was already working for this mega-company called Group 5. In no time, he was part of people working on a major project in Midrand in the building of Vitaword complex. He moved from working in the concrete mixing department “until I was installing doors and ceilings.”
He said that is where he got lots of experience in the building industry. Plus, his boss believed in him so much that, “I too began to have confidence in myself.”
But it wasn’t all roses in Mzanzi—for sure.
It was the time of temporary permits and it was easy to miss permits renewals and to be on the wrong side of the law in a foreign land. There would be times where he would just run away and hide at the sight of a police van. It wasn’t easy. The poor shanty town dwellings did not help either.
One day he woke up and said to himself, “you know what, go back to Lesotho.”
He did.
Back in Leribe, he joined his friend who had a building business and they ended up doing some houses in Maseru. When his friend decided to go back to Leribe, he remained. In his words, he could sense, “some signs of life” which would make business easier than back in Leribe.
After some time, he was already working with another friend in the building industry. His friend was installing ceramic tiles and, “I added to the business by bringing the door installation and ceiling skills.”
He later got a job that promised a better pay and went for it.
In time, he started working with his current boss who allows him to experiment. Having seen the out-of-the-box thinking in him, his boss allows him to try one thing after another and that’s what keeps giving him confidence to do more.
A lesson? If you want to get the best out of your employees, listen to them. Allow them to come up with new ideas.
One day they noted that his boss’s dog kept getting out into the street and frightening or even chasing away passers-by by getting under a devil’s fork fence. He decided to make it harder for the dog by borrowing the neighbours’ welding machine for a quick fix.
It wasn’t that quick!
He had never welding before but used to think welding was a walk in the park.
It wasn’t.
“I was struggling until a neighbour from whom I borrowed the machine came in and taught me how to use it properly,” he said. “From that day on, I never looked back.”
He started making all kinds of things and solving all kinds of problems from the making of garbage bins to making car-pods.
He remembers something interesting happening. His boss likes camping. So one day he came home with a trailer. Almost immediately, he thought to himself, “I can make this thing.” He shared his thoughts with his boss and, in a typical fashion, the boss said, “let’s try it!”
That was it.
They started going through what it would take to make it. It was not going to be an easy task. The material was expensive. The machining would not be easy without proper equipment.
They tried it anyway.
When the first one was done it was taken by the well-known entrepreneur, Tichere Pule. More trailers have been made since then and his confidence has grown. That the likes of Tichere Pule have shown confidence in him has given him so much hope.
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Milco is the Store that will sell only Lesotho products and services:
